


May Contain Traces of Angel

by Mizmak



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23413921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizmak/pseuds/Mizmak
Summary: After swapping their bodies back, Crowley seemed to have a little bit of angel still stuck inside him.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 125





	May Contain Traces of Angel

On the morning after he and Aziraphale successfully swapped bodies back and resumed their old familiar ways, Crowley snapped his fingers as usual to dress himself.

And then he looked in the mirror on his way out of the flat and did a double-take.

The scarf around his neck was _tartan_.

Oops.

With a grunt of displeasure, he snapped it to a dark gray. Then he decided to shrug it off as being due to just a little leftover trace of angel slowly wearing off or something. He was certain it would soon disappear for good.

In this belief, he was quite wrong.

He turned up at the bookshop around lunchtime. Aziraphale had been keeping it closed of late, and Crowley found him rearranging books on one of the shelves.

“Things are all out of order,” he complained. “And there are books that weren’t here before the fire. It’s most vexing.”

“Need some help?” Crowley picked a book off a shelf and put it in its proper place without even thinking. As he started to fix another one, he found Aziraphale staring at him. “Um…what?”

“You knew where it belonged.”

“Yeah, it was clearly Romantic poetry, not Elizabethan—“ Crowley nearly dropped the book in his hands. “Er… _ngk_.” He would not have known that by the title alone prior to their body swapping experience. 

_Oh dear_.

“Is something wrong?” Aziraphale asked.

He hurriedly reshelved the book in the wrong spot. “No, no. I’m fine. Let’s go eat.”

“You’re _sure_ you’re all right?”

“I’m _fine_. Let’s _go_.”

“Yes, yes, no need to get tetchy.”

Crowley sighed. Nor did he need to take things out on his best friend. “Sorry. Feeling a little off, that’s all.”

Aziraphale touched his arm. “Nothing serious?”

Crowley shrugged. “It’ll clear up. No worries.”

“I do hope so, my dear.”

“Right. Where are we dining?”

They went to the Ritz, as usual. Everything seemed fine until Crowley noticed Aziraphale staring at him. 

“What?”

“You’re eating your lunch.”

Crowley looked at his plate of shrimp fettuccini alfredo. It was three-fourths gone and he wanted dessert, too. “Uh…yeah. About that.”

“Something _is_ wrong. I knew it.” Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “Tell me.”

Time to confess – it certainly wasn’t getting any better, and he may as well have some help. “I think something got left over in the body swap.” He looked at the angel’s plate. It was empty. “You seem normal enough.”

“I feel perfectly fine. Are you saying we didn’t completely transfer over?”

“Angel, I put on a _tartan_ scarf this morning. And yes, I did know where that book went. And I’m _hungry_.”

Aziraphale set down his fork and took a large drink of his wine. “This is worrying.”

“You’re telling me! What are we going to do? You’re fine, I’m not – it’s not as if we can try swapping again. What if that only makes things worse?”

“Perhaps it’s only temporary. It’s only one day, my dear. Why don’t we wait at least another day to see if it wears off?”

Crowley dug into the last of his fettuccini, savoring every bite. When he finished, he said, “Don’t know if I can handle another day of this.”

“Oh, really – it’s not that horrid, is it?” Aziraphale did not look pleased. “Are my traits so wretched? You seem to be enjoying your food, after all.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Crowley shoved his empty plate aside. “I like eating. Fine. But I do _not_ intend to wear tartan or go around reading literature.”

“Such a torment for you,” Aziraphale replied curtly.

“Hey, I thought you were worried about me.” Crowley pursed his lips into a pout. And then he realized that he was imitating the angel’s patented pout and stopped. 

“Of course I am. But you don’t need to be so resistant to the idea of having a little bit of me left within. It’s not as if I’m a monster.”

“No, you’re an _angel_. And I’m not.”

“It’s not painful, is it?”

Crowley shrugged. “No. It’s just feels _weird_.”

Aziraphale signaled the waiter and asked for the dessert tray. “One more day,” he said. “Then we’ll start worrying in earnest. Chocolate cake?”

Crowley practically drooled over it.

He didn’t turn up at the bookshop the next day until late afternoon. He went straight to the wine cabinet, poured himself a large glass, and then sat down on the sofa, not sprawling as much as usual.

Aziraphale came over to sit beside him. “Still bad, then?”

“I walked here.”

“You did? Why?”

Crowley sighed. “Because I didn’t feel like driving! I didn’t want to drive my car, Angel – _my beautiful wonderful Bentley!”_

“Oh, dear.”

Crowley downed half the glass in one gulp.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said with concern dripping from every word, "Did you actually walk all the way over here without your sunglasses on?"

"What?" He touched his face. "Oh...that's bad." _Very very not good at all._

"This is quite odd. I was so hopeful one more day would set you right."

"Well, it didn't." Crowley downed the rest of his wine. “We’ll just have to try it.”

“What – do you mean swapping again?”

“Do you have a better idea?” He was desperate. He couldn’t go around forgetting his sunglasses, or _not driving_. He set his wine glass on the coffee table.

“No, but as you said yesterday, what if that only makes it worse? What if _I_ wound up with bits of _you_ inside?”

“Nasty,” Crowley agreed. “You’d start wearing black, and start yelling at house plants, and you’d probably steal my car. Can’t have that.” He shivered.

“Then again, it may truly be the only way to set things right.”

“Yeah, but – “ Crowley didn’t want to hurt Aziraphale, but he didn’t want to wind up taking _public transit_ all over town, either. “Maybe if we go slowly – maybe we can stop the process if things seem off.”

“Very well.” Aziraphale took his hand. “Shall we try it now? If you are certain swapping again is for the best, then that is what we must do.”

His calm acceptance of Crowley’s needs made Crowley hesitate. What if it _did_ make things worse – what if it harmed the angel? Suddenly he felt fretful – just like a certain angel often fretted. Oh, Hell. “Wait. Maybe not. Maybe I’m wrong. We should wait longer.”

“But my dear, you are sitting _upright_ , with your hands in your lap.”

Oh. Not only that, Crowley sat with his hands in his lap, fretting, with his fingers twining anxiously together. That wasn’t good. Or normal. “Er…yeah.” He tried to sprawl a little. It didn’t feel comfortable. “Bollocks.”

“We need to try it.” Aziraphale rubbed his thumb across the top of Crowley’s hand. “Shh. Stop twitching. I don’t want you turning into some version of _me_. I want you to stay _you_.”

“Yeah, but think about it a little more. This way I’ll be less demonic, right? Isn’t that a good thing? Maybe we won’t even be hereditary enemies anymore.” Not that he could possibly turn _into_ an angel. That wasn’t possible. 

_Was it?_

Crowley shivered again.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Aziraphale shifted even closer, and brushed his other hand gently along Crowley’s face, sending a different kind of shiver entirely through his body. “We’re not enemies. You know perfectly well that I only said things like that to appease the Powers That Be. We’re friends. _Best_ friends. But perhaps you do have a point.”

“I do?” 

“Yes, about you not being quite so demonic.”

_Aziraphale is caressing my face_. Crowley swallowed. “Urgh…ngk.”

“Was that English, my dear?” His hand strayed up to Crowley’s hair.

“Uh…what are you doing?” Not that he wanted him to stop doing it.

“I’m running my fingers through your hair.”

“Yeah, I know _that_. Why?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Because it feels _nice_.” He smiled. “I thought I ought to try it before you reverted to your old self. Before you object to _nice_.”

_Ah_. “You mean, before I’m _me_ again. Wholly completely demonically me.” His angel was taking _advantage_ of this idiotic situation. “Really?”

“Why not?” And then suddenly Aziraphale cupped Crowley’s chin in his hand and leaned in to place a feather-light kiss on his lips.

_I am going to discorporate here and now_. “Ngk….”

“Again with the lack of English. My dear, was it that horrid?”

It was anything but. “Angel, are you saying you wanted to do that before, and you didn’t do it because you thought I’d shove you up against a wall or something?”

“Possibly.” Aziraphale touched his fingertips to Crowley’s lips. “May I do it some more?”

_Please…_ Crowley suddenly didn’t feel one bit angelic. He took Aziraphale into a tight embrace, and clutched at the back of his head as he pushed their mouths together in a rushed, heady kiss that blew any semblance of normality into orbit. “ _Yes_ ,” he breathed. “ _More…”_

There was more. A lot more, as he and Aziraphale explored each other’s lips and mouths and cheeks and necks and then somehow his shirt came unbuttoned, and an angel was lavishing kisses all over his chest. “Not fair,” he whispered.

Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and his coat and waistcoat vanished into thin air while his shirt flew open so Crowley could return the favor. He trailed a line of kisses over soft downy skin and then back up his angel’s throat and again to that lovely mouth which he delved into with all the demonic force he could muster. 

When they broke apart, flushed and bright eyed and gasping, Crowley placed his palm on Aziraphale’s bare chest and said, “That was _nice_.”

And that was, he felt certain, ninety-nine percent _himself_ and only one percent leftover trace of angel.

“Oh, yes. Very nice.” Aziraphale smiled softly as he brushed his fingers through Crowley’s hair. “With no shoving against a wall, either.”

A rather sensual image flitted through Crowley’s mind then. “Er…um…might not be a bad thing….” He thought back to when he _had_ grasped Aziraphale and thrown him against a wall to deny being _nice_ , so close together that one more inch would have brought their mouths together and damn if they hadn’t been interrupted he just might have stopped complaining and started kissing and _oh_ , that was an interesting image indeed.

“Well, really, my dear.” Aziraphale’s fingers drifted from his hair to Crowley’s cheek, and his hand stayed there. “That’s a rather demonic thought. Are you sure you still have a trace of _me_ left inside?”

Crowley reached up to take Aziraphale’s hand and turned the palm to his lips for a brief touch. “Not sure. Maybe your kisses cured me.” He probably ought to go get his car and take it for a fast spin, just to be certain, but at the moment, leaving the bookshop was the last thing on his mind.

“Any interest in wearing tartan?”

“Nope.” Crowley looked round at the nearest pile of books. “Don’t think I recognize any of those titles, either.” He decided to try a loose sprawl. “Here, give over – I need to stretch out.”

After a bit of shifting and rearranging, he managed to half-sit, half-lie on the sofa, with Aziraphale half-sitting, half-lying alongside him. “Huh. Never realized how wide this sofa is.”

“A miracle, really.” Aziraphale nestled into him, head on his chest, arm wrapped round Crowley’s waist. “I love you, by the way.”

Crowley started to make an unintelligible noise or two but then stopped. He could speak perfectly good English when he wanted to, and he wanted to very much. “I love you, too.”

“Even though I somehow left a trace of angel behind when we swapped our bodies back?”

“Please don’t say you did that on purpose.”

“Of course I didn’t. Would have been _fun_ , though, if I had.”

“Yeah? How would you like it if I’d left a trace of demon in _you?”_

“Delightfully sinful, I should expect.”

_Delightfully?_ Crowley tightened his embrace. “How you can still surprise me after six thousand years is quite a miracle.”

Aziraphale lifted his head to kiss Crowley’s cheek, then nestled down once more. “Miracles are what I do.” He stroked Crowley’s chest. “Feeling yourself, then, are you? No more traces of angel in here?”

He did feel himself, totally, one hundred percent himself, and Crowley realized with a slight pang that he actually missed it a bit, that tiny sliver of Aziraphale that had somehow stayed inside him for a short while. 

Then again, he had one hundred percent of Aziraphale wrapped around him in a loving embrace, and that was more than a fair recompense.

He took hold of Aziraphale’s hand, holding it against his chest, over his heart. “There’s much more than a trace of angel in here.” He kissed Aziraphale’s forehead. “My heart holds all of you, forever.”

If that was a rather angelic sentiment, he hardly cared. Angel, demon – they were two halves of one whole. No separation – no beginning, no ending – only love entwined, only two hearts that dwelled within one soul.

“As my heart holds you,” Aziraphale replied. He raised his head again, to grace Crowley with one of his beaming smiles. “Though if you ever want to wear tartan, I have quite a nice selection to choose from.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Crowley smiled softly before darting in for a quick kiss. “Not unless you wear something _black_.”

“That might be _fun_.”

Crowley grinned. “Yeah, it might at that.” 

He wondered from time to time, as they relaxed in a pleasant, lazy tangle on the sofa for the rest of that afternoon and all of that evening, if that slight body-swapping mishap had been part of some divine plan all along, for it had led them here, to this perfect place, together.

“ _Ineffable_ ,” he murmured, gazing up at the ceiling towards Heaven. “Right?”

He didn’t really need an answer.


End file.
